Campaigners fighting to save a Briton from execution in the United States want Tony Blair to pick up the phone to help.

Campaigners fighting to save a Briton from execution in the United States want Tony Blair to pick up the phone to help.

Redcar MP Vera Baird who is among those fighting to get the execution of Tracy Housel stopped, today said they will ask the Prime Minister to make a transatlantic phone call, asking for clemency.

It follows a lukewarm reception to a call made yesterday by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to Georgia Governor Roy Barnes.

Housel is due to be executed by injection on March 12 for raping and beating to death a woman he met at a truck stop in 1985. His death warrant was signed yesterday.

Housel, 43, holds dual US and British citizenship, as he was born in Bermuda, a British dependency.

The British government has stepped forward on his behalf, pleading for the death sentence to be commuted to life in prison.

Former civil liberties barrister Ms Baird, who is willing to fly to the US to appeal directly to the Georgia Board, said today: "We will be liaising with the Foreign Office today to make approaches to Tony Blair, to ask him if he will telephone."